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I recently shot a quick clip for Fast Company’s 30-second MBA program (a great series if you’re looking for some rapid fire business advice). It got me thinking… in an age where digital is an increasingly central piece of corporate strategy, what type of training and experience should businesses really look for in the talent they hope will unlock their digital business opportunities?

First off, I have to acknowledge the fact that there are still many issues with a lack of digital adoption across business elite, particularly in regards to the C-suite at major corporations (I posted on this a while back). For the most part, executives still prefer to hire “digital experts” who run a separate service for their business rather than gain that competency themselves. But, while I’ll be the first to tell you I am extremely passionate about digital education, I am noticing another problem beginning to bubble to the surface – digital specialists are often sorely lacking in their broader business knowledge. From the standpoint of getting innovation done in organizations, having narrow-minded digital experts is just as dangerous as digitally incompetent management.

If you think about it, it is almost impossible for the most senior executives and digital leaders to speak the same language now. Lots of corporations are still sectioning off digital and social media functions as separate units, making it more difficult to tie their work back to the bigger-picture strategy of the organization. I think HARO’s Peter Shankman may have said it best in his bold op-ed in Business Insider earlier this year: “Social media is just another facet of marketing and customer service. Say it with me... Social media, by itself, will not help you.” This is true, and quite frankly, a huge problem.

The best talent offers a blend of digital savvy and more traditional business skills, grounded in a mix of education and experiential learning, but the people who really get both sides are few and far between. As most organizations would be lucky to find just a handful of these folks, the most practical solution is to try to build up lacking competencies incrementally. Digital teams should ask themselves: what do we really know about product development, supply chain management, and operational efficiency? Likewise, C-suite executives should be asking themselves: what technologies are changing the world, how do they really work and how are we tapping into them to drive our business? The more people can answer these questions, the more digital will be put to work for the bottom line.

But without an on-going commitment to the right kinds of education, organizations will always have blind spots, unrealized opportunities for growth or increased profitability. The good news is that more often than not, pockets of expertise are right there within the organization: senior executives just need to open themselves up to reverse mentoring (perhaps even from someone half their age), and digital specialists need to be cognizant how their expertise is limited without a stronger business foundation. Humbling as it is, knowing what you don’t know is the only way to make progress.